Lullaby
by Tara1189
Summary: Sometimes there's a reason to fear the night. Ginny/Tom
1. The First Night

**Summary: Sometimes there's a reason to fear the night. Ginny/Tom.**

**My first Gin n'Tonic fic! I've been wanting to write about these two for ages. There is just something so dark and addictive about this pairing. It will probably be told in about four or five parts, depending on how much this runs away with me. **

**The lyrics at the beginning are from **_**Mordred's Lullaby **_**by Heather Dale; a fantastically creepy and mood inducing song of twisted love and consuming revenge (and one which makes me **_**very **_**tempted to write a Mordred fic sometime in the near-future, thanks to a recent obsession with all things Arthurian). **

* * *

**Lullaby**

_Hush child, the darkness will rise from the deep  
And carry you down into sleep  
Child, the darkness will rise from the deep,  
And carry you down into sleep. _

_Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty  
Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty only to me…_

**The First Night**

He's there waiting for her as she knows he would be. Tom, her beautiful fallen angel. No longer a boy of paper and ink, but flesh and blood. Real. Alive at last.

She has a vague memory, shrouded and indistinct, of finding herself in the girl's bathroom, facing those serpentine taps, whispering words whose meaning eludes her utterly. Some force within her but not of her had impelled her to evoke those sibilant Parseltongue syllables, opening the way down into her very own underworld.

Hell is often portrayed as a red-hued place of fire and brimstone, but she knows this to be false. Hell is green, hell is dank and chill, a cavernous realm of green mist and stone walls and watery floors, a place where the cold air lays clammy hands upon her skin, causing its surface to pucker in response. She finds herself drowning in this mist, this incandescence, being pulled under to a watery grave, until she hears it at last. A lifeline. Two words spoken in an arrogant, impatient voice that nevertheless has branded itself into her soul.

"Come here."

And Ginevra Molly Weasley obeys.

He unfurls an elegant hand in a lazy, languorous gesture; she finds herself irresistibly drawn towards him.

She's dreaming, she knows this. She is still wearing her nightdress; dank water is seeping through the bottom hem of the translucent material, staining it by slow inches. Her bare feet are numb with cold. The Basilisk might be dead, but that is only a small mercy. It was never the serpent that she was afraid of.

It's like moving through sea mist, pale green and cloying, its damp tendrils entwining her like the coils of a snake. And through it all, his angular figure emerges, relaxed as she has ever seen it, but she senses him watching, waiting. She stares at the alabaster skin of his elegant neck before it disappears beneath the high, outdated collar, the line of his graceful, narrow shoulders beneath the ruffled shirt. Just the same as he had been three years ago when he had emerged from the diary, a fully formed embodiment of everything she hated and most loved.

_But I'm not a child any more._

Yes, Tom has certainly seen to that.

In the eerie light of the chamber, his dark eyes have taken on an oddly greenish hue, almost like – but no. Nothing like. Harry's emerald eyes are like clear-cut glass, brilliant and open and heartfelt. The green tint in Tom's eyes is like the surrounding mist, secretive and shrouded, contained and containing. But there's a hunger lurking within those irises that even he cannot fully conceal. Oh, his heart is bleeding for revenge. Fifty years is a long time.

And now, at last, he has his chance.

She can't breathe, she's so afraid. She's faced Death Eaters before, but this is different. This isn't a matter of remembering spells memorised in a Defence Against the Dark Arts club or even fighting behind Harry, _for _Harry.

But for some reason, she doesn't want to think about Harry, even though he is the only one who probably understands what it is like to be haunted by Voldemort. But Voldemort is a hideous villain, more monster than man, and has no affinity with her handsome Tom.

Perhaps, if she hadn't met Harry, she would have pitied this boy, orphaned and alone. But Harry, who is everything good and pure, despite being raised by uncaring relatives, renders it impossible. No one can pity Tom. He would hate her for even trying.

Up close, his pale skin is almost translucent, and she reflects that even after everything he's still the most handsome boy she's ever seen. _We're the same age now, _she realises with a jolt.

It doesn't make her any less afraid of him.

"Ginevra." The name is breathed between them, low and compelling. He's the only person who has ever called her that. She remembers how thrilling and grown up it used to seem when she was so used to being plain old _Ginny, _and she feels slightly sick.

She tries to speak and manages only one word. "How?" The sound of it is thrown around the cavernous walls, echoing over and over. _How, how, how._

He smirks, a demon's smile on an angel's face. "Did you really think you could rid yourself of me so easily?"

She shakes her head, numbly. She's never been rid of him, never, never.

His expression becomes musing, contemplative. "I survived, Ginevra, because _you _did. I poured my _soul _into you. And so, I brought you here. This place holds pleasant memories for you, I'm sure." His eyes glitter unpleasantly. "It was _supposed _to be your tomb."

She remembers it even now; the life draining out of her, Tom emerging from the diary and _laughing – _

Her hand holding the wand is shaking violently; Ginny doubts she'll even be able to point it straight.

"You should be honoured, _Ginny._" The familiar name sounds so terribly _wrong _in his cruel, caressing tones. "I was prepared to show you a great privilege, allowing the chamber of my great ancestor to serve as your final resting place. It is more than you deserve, a mere blood traitor brat."

"Yet Harry defeated you." Her voice is hoarse, yet she throws all the mockery she can into it. "Does that still sting, Tom?"

"Don't attempt to provoke me, Ginevra." He merely sounds impatient. "You never could."

The curt dismissal causes her cheeks to burn with humiliated anger. Only he can make her feel eleven years old again. But she's still not willing to back down entirely.

"Harry destroyed the diary," she repeats insistently. "He stabbed it, I saw it bleed –"

"Nothing but ink, you foolish child. Fortunately, my magic is a little more _permanent _than that."

He moves towards her with a sensual, serpentine grace. She is so enraptured by it that she isn't aware of what he intends until the wand is pulled from her grasp by a pair of long, pale fingers.

"You won't be needing this."

She swallows hard, suddenly feeling terribly open and exposed. His eyes rake over her, relishing in her discomfort.

"Scared, Ginevra?"

"No," she lies.

He laughs at her transparent denial. "Show some of that famous Gryffindor courage."

Courage? Where is it now? She has changed in the last four years, changed so much that even she's ashamed of the blushing, stuttering eleven-year-old she had once been. But now all the things she's become, the things she's striven to be, are meaningless. Her bravery, her passion, her tenacity… it all receded the moment she set eyes on him once more. No one can stand against Tom and win.

No one else can stand against Tom and _want_ to lose.

She shudders.

"My," he murmurs, eyes raking over her, and suddenly she doesn't feel eleven at all. "How you are changed, Ginevra." He taps her wand against the side of his face as he regards her thoughtfully. "And yet… not so very different, after all."

"You're wrong," she says, her voice shaking with hatred. "I _am _different. You can't fool me like you used to. I know who you are, I know _what _you are -"

His too-thin mouth is pulled into a smile. "Who said anything about fooling you? I think it's fairly obvious what I want. Don't you?"

She's going to scream.

His light figure moves easily towards her, a combination of lithe grace and predatory resolve. A pale light flares in his dark eyes. Oh, not for _her, _she knows him better than that. No, he's relishing what he's going to _do_, this meticulous revenge he has been so long devising.

"I have waited a long time for this moment."

She doesn't beg for mercy. She knows he has none. The gold and black ring flashes in the gloom, a chilling reminder of what he's capable of doing, even to those closest to him.

_Especially _to those closest to him.

And suddenly, the pain of the old betrayal comes back to her. She remembers it all: honeyed words and poisoned lies and broken promises. _They don't understand you, Ginny, not like I do, we're friends aren't we, _best _friends, and you would do anything for me, anything at all, you'd _die_ for me, wouldn't you, Ginny -_

She stumbles backwards, sloshing through the dank water that swirls around the flimsy material of her nightdress. The cold wracks through her body, through her bones, but she doesn't care. Nothing in her brain but _run run run - _

She has to get back - back up to -

Tom hasn't moved; he's merely standing in the same position, watching her with a kind of malicious amusement.

"Going somewhere?" he smirks.

She stops dead, icy fingers curling into fists as she struggles to swallow down her fear. He knows she can't run from him. And there is no Harry coming to rescue her this time; even he can't save her from her own mind. _Just a dream, _she tells herself forcefully, _just a dream, just a dream -_

"You're nothing," she says, with a conviction she does not feel. "You're an illusion, a fantasy -"

She can see she has angered him by the thinning of his mouth into a tight line, but his voice is lazy and deceptively soft. And his slanting eyes hold a strange kind of triumph. "_I am everything you ever wanted_."

_He remembers, _Ginny realises, with a rush of furious despair, _he remembers how I fell for his lies, how I believed everything he ever told me -_

Tom's arms are crossed as he regards her coolly. "Run if you will. Be a little coward. Shame your House. But do you really think you can get away from me up there?"

He has moved closer. Although he has not laid a hand on her, her skin is humming with sensation. Her breathing is thick and heavy in her ears.

"_That is not your world," _he hisses. His low, mesmerising voice enfolds her like the veiling embrace of the mist; telling her that she belongs in the darkness and whispers and empty spaces. She's shivering violently in her thin nightdress, the gauzy fabric soaked to the knees, rendering it almost transparent. Her red hair is hanging down in damp, snaky locks, the only thing of colour and life in this shrouded world.

She wants to reach out and touch him, convince herself that he too is an illusion, but he isn't faded or blurred around the edges, but defined and solid and so very, very real. Far more real than the memory-fragment that emerged from the diary as her life was bleeding away to sustain his. Her _pure blood._

She wonders if he ever appreciated the poetry of it.

There has been something broken inside her ever since that day; a shard, a fragment embedded within her like a Basilisk fang driven through her heart. She has never been able to rid herself of it, only cover it in brittle smiles and sleep inducing potions. And in the above world of sunshine and Quidditch and Sugar Quills, the darkness laughs, waiting, biding its time.

That time is now.

Tom's pale, narrow face is very close to her own. She can see herself mirrored in his dark gaze. The black hair falls into his eyes as he leans over her. She can imagine the feel of the lightly muscled shoulders and arms, the tense strength they are capable of holding.

If she moves just a _little _closer, she would not need to imagine -

She jumps violently as he uses her wand to trace a slow line along her cheekbone, in a gesture that is somehow as sensual as it is cruel. "No one knows you, Ginny," he says softly. "Not like I do." And she can taste his words: blood and ink and bittersweet poison. Sickness twists inside her stomach, and something else, something cloying and insidious that creeps through her fingers and toes, compelling her to stand and listen to what he's saying and submit to it willingly.

She has poured out her soul to him, and he has never given it back. He is embedded inside her now, running like ink through her veins.

She will never be free again.

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**Stay tuned for Part II. And review!**


	2. The Second Night

**The Second Night**

He's dressed in black robes tonight, bordered with green and silver. Green suits him, Ginny realises, much the way it suits Draco Malfoy (who _is _a good-looking boy, despite what Hermione would say). There's something so cold, so reptilian about the colour. It's so very… _Tom. _Green offsets his dark, Machiavellian looks perfectly. Not for him the aggressive and tasteless Gryffindor red, the garish Hufflepuff yellow or bland Ravenclaw blue.

Funnily enough, red never suited her either. It clashes horribly with her hair and freckles, makes her pale skin look washed out and dwarfs her diminutive frame.

Green however, is another matter. The colour seems made for her. Emerald green heightens her red hair to fiery copper and wine-dipped gold, makes her pale skin luminescent and clings to her slender stature.

Green eyes, green water, green snakes. Wherever she goes, it seems to follow her. There, always, behind everything.

No sound in the dim chamber save for the occasional drip and echo of water. She's seated on a stone slab raised slightly above the damp floor, knees drawn up under her chin. Tom still has her wand. She assumes this position of resigned acceptance, waiting for the moment in which he will drop his guard, even though a part of her knows he never will.

"No one is coming for you, Ginevra," he remarks, sounding almost bored as he idly examines her wand. Mahogany and Phoenix feather. "Not Dumbledore. Certainly not your precious Harry Potter."

"Then you don't know Harry," she flares.

At the thought of Harry, wild hope flares within her heart. Harry, who stopped Quirrell getting the Philosopher's Stone; Harry, who killed the Basilisk; Harry, who won the Triwizard Tournament…

_He'll find a way, he'll find something. He always does. Because he's a hero._

He seems to read her thoughts - and, being Tom - it wouldn't surprise her if he had. His eyes darken to the colour of coal smudges as his mouth comes down at the side in impatience. As his hand reaches out, she flinches away, as though afraid he will hit her. But instead, his fingers merely trace the line of her jaw in a gesture that would have been tender in anyone except him. She almost smiles at her foolishness. No, Tom would never hit her. He would never resort to anything so… coarse. It is the refined precision of destroying a mind that he relishes, the slow corruption of a soul.

"So you believe then, as that fool Dumbledore would insist, that _love _conquers all?"

His fingers are cool against her bare skin as he tilts her head up to face him. She closes her eyes, hard, willing down the strong feeling of nausea. "There's no such thing as love," she says dully. "Merely power and submission. You taught me that."

His serpent's gaze is like looking into the eyes of the Basilisk, inviting instant death. "True." He smirks. "Perhaps you are not so stupid as I first thought."

"But you're wrong," she continues. "You – your future self – tried to possess Harry last summer. And you couldn't. You know why? Because of _love. _Harry's Mum died to save him, and that protected him –"

"So Potter is protected by his mother's blood? Yes, I remember now. I am sure that information will prove _most _useful… in time."

Ginny's heart stops in her throat. She stumbles to her feet, backing up a few steps. She can still feel his lingering half-caress ghosting across her skin.

"What are you going to do?" she asks nervously.

He shakes his head slowly, a slender hand still partly raised, fingers closing on empty air. "You don't honestly expect me to tell _you? _Not that it would make any difference…" he breathes as an afterthought. "I doubt you'll be leaving here alive."

Animal instinct takes over. She raises a hand to strike him, but he's too fast; catching at her wrist, his nails digging savagely into the skin. He smirks as she cries out.

"Don't be difficult, Ginevra. I don't want to have to spill any more of that blood than is necessary. After all, it is of _some _worth to me, in spite of coming from a ragged family of worthless blood traitors."

_Worthless. _She looks down into the water that pools around her feet, illuminated by the light-that-is-unlight. Her reflection, blurred and wavering, stares back. A shadow darkens across the rippling surface and she stiffens. She raises her head.

Tom is looking at her curiously. "You are nothing to me," he murmurs. "Less than nothing. Yet I cannot deny there was a certain… _pleasure _in twisting you to my will. To think you were like darting fire, so brilliant and vivid, and then reduced to nothing but a ghost by the time I had finished with you." He breathes a soft laugh.

Hatred boils up inside Ginny. She wants to scream, hit him. Yet she remains mute and still, watching the absorbed, concentrated expression on his unreadable face.

"When you first came to me, you were just a tiresome, whining brat… but such potential. Such _innocence._" He smiles. A lock of black hair falls down to rest against his narrow cheekbone._ "_There is something so much more fascinating in corrupting an innocent soul than in weak-minded, easily swayed men seeking power. Don't you think?"

Ginny can't breathe. She is shaking with anger at everything he's ever done to her, of innocence lost that can never be regained, of shattered childhood optimism and blighted hopes. Her adolescence has been stained by ink and blood, and will never be clean again. She wants spotlessness, purity. Like the blank sheets of an unfilled diary.

His fingers tighten suddenly, locking around her wrist as he drags her towards him. Startled by the sharpness of the movement, she almost loses her balance, but he braces her effortlessly, his other hand coming to rest on the narrow curve of her hip. It feels like there is no barrier between his fingers and her bare skin, and in spite of how cold his hands are, his touch burns deeper than fire. It eats into her skin, and she feels herself curling up at the edges, like scorched paper. "I was wrong," he says softly. "I did leave your innocence intact in _one _respect…"

Bile rises in her throat as his full meaning hits her. Her heart is pounding so hard she fears she will choke on it. She can feel the lines and angles of his body where she's pressed against him, the sinuous grace and subtle tension in his lean frame. And she can smell that scent of him, of _Tom, _old parchment andink and dried blood. She closes her eyes, wondering if this, then, is how he will take his revenge.

He seems to read her thoughts. "You needn't worry," he sneers. "I wouldn't sully myself by touching you."

Her eyes sting with tears of humiliation.

"And yet why sullied?" he continues thoughtfully, almost to himself. "Your connections may be… _regrettable…_ but you're as Pureblooded as –"

"_You?"_ she says mockingly, choking down a cruel laugh. "I forget, which of your parents was it that was a Muggle, Tom –?"

"Shut up!" he hisses, shaking her savagely. Her red hair flies wildly around her face and his fingers are bruising her thin shoulders, but she doesn't stop. If she can make him angry, then she has power over him. It's a rather intoxicating feeling.

_He could kill you -_

_But he _hasn't _-_

She looks up, laughing at his fury even as his assault has left her stunned and breathless. "I bet it kills you, doesn't it? Knowing about your Muggle roots, that your whole Pureblood cause is based on a lie, and you're the biggest lie of all -"

She cries out as he shoves her hard against the wall. Stars explode across her closed lids as the back of her head collides with the stone; she rocks from the impact of it. Nausea roars through her body. And through the blurring dizziness she can sense Tom in front of her, hear him breathing hard. She opens her eyes.

His handsome face is terrifyingly blank; only his eyes are blazing with fury.

"I told you," he says with chilling finality. "To _be quiet."_

Ginny swallows hard, but obeys. Tom steps easily towards her; and with the cold stone pressed against her back, she cannot retreat… and where would she run to anyway? She feels weak and sick, with barely the energy to remain upright. Gingerly, she reaches a hand to the back of her head. Something is sticky in the tangles of her hair and her fingers come away coated in blood - the pure blood he's so crazy about.

She holds out a shaking hand. The crimson drops are the brightest thing in the dim chamber. There's a strange, hungry expression on his face as his eyes follow the movement.

"Is it worth it, Tom?" she whispers. "Is _this _worth it?"

He doesn't say anything, but in answer takes her fingers with his own and raises them to his lips. She shudders as his tongue darts out, kissing it, _tasting _it -

Her senses reel. He's consuming her whole. She draws a sharp intake of breath as he nips at her fingers, mouth stained with crimson. Her vision blurs. The eerie light on the walls flickers oddly, like the shimmering scales of a snake… Ginny sways slightly. Her head is pounding, _throbbing, _and the movement of his mouth against her skin sends ripples through her body down to her very _toes -_

_Oh God, please stop… stop…_

But she cannot summon breath, let alone words to speak.

When he finally releases her, she feels drained, sickened. Her entire body is paralysed, as though the venom of a poisonous snake flows through her veins.

_Venom. Blood. Ink. Poison._

The blood rushes in her ears. She blinks through a green haze of pain. Tom has retreated a few steps, the disturbed water eddying around his feet. There is something horrible about the sight of her own blood on his mouth, vivid as spilled wine. She can see her wand in the pocket of his robes and frantically wishes she could perform wandless magic, and perform a Summoning spell, anything…

"Your blood is mine, Ginevra," he states calmly. "Just as everything of yours belongs to me. Your mind, your body, your soul. Where I end, you begin. A mere extension of myself."

"You're wrong," she says, tightly. "I'm _nothing _of you. I'm nothing _like_ you."

He lifts a dark brow. "Oh really? Then I suppose you have nothing to fear if I take a closer look… _Legilimens!"_

The swift attack leaves her no time to summon any resistance. She doubles over as images teem through her head: herself giving a particularly cutting imitation of Fleur Delacour; tripping Ron over and sending him sprawling in the mud; hexing Zacharias Smith with little provocation; angrily taunting Ron in the corridor while Harry stands by, purposely flying into a podium that collapses, burying Smith beneath sharp splinters of wood –

She opens her eyes to find Tom gazing at her; his eyes alight with faint amusement. "Singularly nasty behaviour, wouldn't you agree?"

Ginny swallows down a lump in her throat, feeling ill. _Nasty… no… _He has taken her actions completely out of context –

"That wasn't – it was just a laugh –"

"So you acted only for your own amusement?" His lip curls as he adds musingly, "It looks as though you injured the boy quite badly."

"Injured?" Her voice is shrill with disbelief. "You _killed _people!"

"The stupid little girl of eleven would never have _dreamed _of doing anything so… malicious," he continues softly. "I wonder how your little friends would _feel, _knowing who you really are. Your champion, Potter, for instance? Does he know how you still dream of blood drenching your robes at night, the feel of bones snapping beneath your bare hands? Or how you wake up speaking words in Parseltongue, something you both have in common?" His voice drops to a whisper. "How _sweet_."

Deprived of her wand, and unable to match his physical strength, Ginny does the only other thing she can; bracing herself, she tilts her head back and spits fully in his face.

For a moment, deathly silence falls between them. Tom's eyes blaze in his stark white face. His expression of stunned fury causes hysterical laughter to bubble up inside her chest even as his fingers grind against the bones in her shoulder. "You –"

Her shill laugh turns into a cry of pain as his nails break into skin, raking it cruelly. He looks briefly satisfied at that, although mingled with the fury in his eyes, it makes him look slightly crazed.

"You _insolent_ brat," he hisses. "You dare –"

He shoves her away from him in disgust. Ginny hits the ground, hard, gritting her teeth against the pain of it, and glares up at him.

With the sleeve of his shirt cuff, he wipes at his face, staring down at her. She reflects that his elegant, long-fingered hand against the slightly ruffled lace looks almost effeminate, but it doesn't make her any less afraid of him. It just makes her all the more aware of the things he's capable of doing with those hands. Names echo in her head in a chanting litany… _Harry's parents, Cedric Diggory – _

Painfully, Ginny picks herself up, dimly aware of the water seeping through her nightgown, mingling with the streaks of blood welling from the crescent shaped cuts on her shoulders. She's shivering uncontrollably, the damp nightdress clinging to her body providing no warmth. Her forehead is clammy, and she can still feel that dull, throbbing pain where she hit the wall… it would be almost a relief to faint, to find oblivion… or maybe she should just go to where the water is the deepest, to hold herself under, and obliterate him from her mind that way -

"Who's Dean Thomas?" Tom asks, suddenly.

Sudden fear skitters across her skin, though for a moment, she cannot understand why. She focuses on her breathing. In. Out. Then she lifts her chin.

"What's it to you?"

He shrugs, elegantly. "Merely curious." He shakes his head in something close to wonderment. "The depths a blood traitor will sink to, consorting with Mudbloods… how _presumptuous…"_

"Leave him alone, Tom." The words escape her before she can stop them. "He hasn't done anything –"

His eyebrows raise in faint surprise. "You're actually _begging? _When have I ever listened to your appeals?"

Her white lips frame the answer, _never. _She can taste the bitter anger on her tongue, and something else… a dark tang of metallic blood, or ink -

"I hate you," she says, her voice shaking. "I hate you so much I want to die… I _hate _you, Tom –"

"I know," he says, and he's smiling. He's actually _pleased. _"I know you do. You've never hated anyone before, have you, Ginevra? Oh, you used to complain about your brothers teasing you, or the girls whispering in your dormitory, but _true _hatred… no, it was only me that ever made you feel so strongly, so _entirely. _You're possessed by the mere _thought _of me."

"You're sick," she whispers, although he's _right. _"You used my body to try and kill Muggleborns – Colin, Hermione –"

"Yes," he says lightly. "Your diary entries were most illuminating. Of course, one Mudblood's the same as another, but striking at those closest to you and Potter and watching your bewilderment…" He breaks off, laughing that high, cold laugh. It's like glass shattering in her ears. "Anyone else would have guessed it at once. But," he says, sneering. "You were stupid. It never occurred to you to ask why a stranger would be so interested in the trite and tiresome ramblings of an eleven-year old girl."

Humiliation floods her body. She wants to put her hands over her ears, to block out the words he's saying. But curiously, the mockery has gone from his expression. He tilts his head to one side, considering her. His voice is soft, contemplative.

"When you stole the diary back, it wasn't merely a childish fear that I would pour out your secrets to Potter. You _wanted _me back. Even after everything I'd done to you, you still couldn't let me go." And the words are poison, coming from that smooth tongue of his, yet they seemed to hold a kind of irrefutable logic.

"If I asked you to kill me now, what would you say?"

"Yes," Ginny says, because she hates him and everything ever he's done and going to do.

"If I asked if you _wanted _to kill me, what would you say?"

Her throat seems to have closed off. His mouth curls into a knowing smile.

"I thought as much."

She stares at that painfully familiar face, with its youthful lines and high cheekbones and eyes the colour of ink… And she realises, with a rush of hopelessness, that even if she kills him, he still would have won.

Suddenly, she wants her brothers. Bill's quiet control, Charlie's frank strength, Ron's loyalty, even Percy with his well-meaning bluster. But they won't come. They stopped caring a long time ago, just like everyone else. All too happy to dismiss her year in hell, to sweep it under the rug and believe in her forced enthusiasm and false smiles. They just think of her as their funny, fierce Ginny, not knowing that hair bright as the sun hides a soul dark as night. As dark as _his _eyes. If they had looked harder, they would have seen this blackness eating away at her, day by day, year by year. But it's easier for them to believe in her brittle words and glassy smiles.

In the end, Tom is the only one who ever cared, even if it was all a lie.

He's the only one who knows her at all.


	3. The Third Night

**The Third Night**

There is something different about him tonight. Normally he treats her as though she's a particularly stubborn or petulant child, with an air of condescending contempt. But tonight there's a lingering quality to his touches, a strange caress in his voice and a look in his eyes that fills her with nameless terror. She doesn't want to think about it, what it might mean.

"It's almost too perfect," he breathes, "That after everything, you are bound to me far more than any of those other fools that mindlessly dote upon whatever I say."

"You think I _dote _on what you say?" she retorts with harsh disbelief. "Then you're even more deluded than -"

"No," Tom says, calmly ignoring her. "That's the beauty of it. You do what I want, whether you will or no. Not through fear or obedience." His dark eyes dance over her curiously. "But what then, I wonder?"

Ginny doesn't answer. What _can _she say?

Wearily, she half-closes her eyes, the dark, charismatic boy blurring slightly before her. Then pain twists her heart because for a moment it's like looking at Harry; a Slytherin Harry, a Harry with his own fearlessness but with Draco Malfoy's sneering cruelty, and something else… something that isn't Harry's or Draco's, but very much Tom's own.

_What then, I wonder?_

She shivers at the dark suggestion in his soft words.

"I don't love you, if that's what you're getting at," she hisses.

Tom merely looks bored. "If I thought for a second that you did, I wouldn't be wasting my time with you."

She knows that for once he isn't lying. He feeds off her anger and hatred, laughing at the fact that he is the cause of them.

He smiles, a slow enigmatic smile. "And of course, things are different now. You won't be enticed with a few choice words and careful flattery. But there_ are _other ways to break you."

She stares at him. What more can he possibly do to her?

Perhaps she doesn't want to know the answer.

"Pretty Ginny Weasley," he says softly. "So very unchanged. Still waiting for her _noble _Harry Potter to notice her, not realising he would never see _anything _desirable in such a whining, stupid little blood traitor –"

The words shouldn't hurt her, but they do. Especially as a part of her suspects there might be some truth in them. His words have always had the ability to cut to the core of her, bleeding out everything that ever mattered to her. Except _him, _of course.

"I remember a time," he continues, with an unpleasant glint in his eyes, "When an eleven-year old girl _begged_ to see a picture of her dear Tom, and I so obligingly granted her request. I remember the little girl was thinking how very _handsome _I was, and wondering what it would be like to receive a _kiss _from such a grown up boy –"

She flushes, hating him.

"I never did grant you that last request," he says, musingly.

Then, all of a sudden, his hands are on her shoulders, pulling her sharply towards him. If the chamber is cold then his fingers are ice. A gasp tears itself from her throat. She is small anyway, but he seems taller than ever as he leans over her. She has to tilt her head back to look at him. "Would you like that, Ginny?" he whispers.

"Don't," she grits through her teeth.

Tom's eyes flare with brief annoyance. "Don't what?"

"_Don't call me Ginny_."

"Hmm." He twines his hands in her hair, the red strands caught like tendrils of fire between his pale fingers. "Perhaps you are right. After all, you're hardly a little girl any more…"

Slowly, he draws her head towards him. Ginny's mind slams to a halt as his mouth slants over hers. The world blurs at the edges and she grips Tom's arms to steady herself. His mouth is hard and unrelenting against her own, and there's an ecstatic pain in it, a kind of sickening thrill. She tastes ink and parchment and the hours of darkness, and beneath that, something unpleasant and bitter... perhaps this is what Basilisk venom tastes like. She's drowning in his closeness, the terrifying proximity of him. He frames her face with his hands, holding her in place, though she doubts she could summon the will to pull away even if she wanted to -

And then it's over. Flushed, wide eyed, unable to take in what has just happened, she stares at Tom.

He looks… strange. Two spots of colour burn high in his cheekbones. His dark eyes are heavy as he regards her. The silence between them is enormous.

Ginny stiffens in shock as leans in towards her again, and his cool lips brush over her throat in a brief, searing touch, moving down, down to -

"Don't -" she manages through her constricted throat.

"No?" he says, and it's the voice from the diary that she hears, the soft caressing tones that she had once adored and trusted more than anything else in the world -

Sudden fury surges through her body like a white-hot lance. "Get away from me," she hisses, pushing him away.

Or at least, she tries to. His grip on her upper arms is like a vice. She can feel the heat of him scorching through her thin nightgown, and frantically wonders how she doesn't burn to ash. Then she realises something else that turns her icy with terror, paralysing her against him. He's _furious._

"Since _when,_" he demands, his voice thick with hatred, "Do _you _tell me what I can and cannot do?"

Her mouth opens to make a savage retort, but her mind thinks only one thing. _Never, Tom. _

He smiles at her silence. Ginny blinks back stinging tears. His hold on her is bruising; everything else around her a green haze.

"I don't answer to you," Tom says, in a quieter tone that is no less frightening for its softness. "I don't answer to anyone. Don't you know that by now?"

One hand holds her possessively to him, the other stroking her in a series of light, darting touches. Her shoulders. Her waist. Her hips. Her breasts. She jerks convulsively in his hold and he laughs quietly.

This is nothing like those fumbled, awkward encounters with Michael or Dean, in clumsy moments before Quidditch matches and between classes. This isn't even like those moments in the darkness of her own bed when she's imagined Harry coming to her and saying the words she's longed to hear for five years now. This is… something else.

His long fingers glide downwards in a scorching trail, moving so low as to make her blush. "Nothing to say for once, Ginevra?" he drawls, and there is something still boyish in his arrogant voice, for all its silken quality. "No, I thought not… underneath all that Gryffindor bravado, you're still an innocent."

_But… he wouldn't… everything he said... whining, worthless… he thinks I'm a blood traitor..._

But another voice, more insistent overrides that flimsy argument.

_But you're a Pureblood, aren't you?_

She _cannot _let this happen. But this is Tom, and when could she ever deny Tom anything?

His fingers trace a line across her mouth, parting her lips. Ginny bites down savagely. The bitter tang of blood floods her mouth and she is aware of surprise – she'd been half-expecting ink. Tom only laughs, swiping his fingers across her face, leaving dark streaks in their wake. "Fight me, why don't you," he murmurs against her ear. "Call out for your Mudblood loving champion Potter, or your blood traitor brothers… Tell me this isn't what you've been dreaming of all these years, even when you were too young to understand what it was you wanted -"

_No - you're wrong - I never wanted -_

She struggles furiously against him, hands flying out to strike any part of him she can reach, but he catches her wrists easily, twisting them painfully behind her back and drawing her closer to his body in the same movement. She can feel his rapid inhalations beneath his shirt, the shaking, brutal force of his fingers digging into her wrists. She's overcome by dizziness, the ink-and-darkness scent of him. He's too close, too real, too _alive_. He's always been too much for her, threatening to swallow her whole. And the bite-like kisses on her neck and shoulders _hurt, _his teeth are sharp, but there's a certain cruel pleasure in it. Her head falls back on instinct, like an animal baring its throat for sacrifice. She realises she's gasping for breath, but the cloying, misty air only drags her deeper into this eddying nightmare, or dream, or…

_He can't – he's a ghost, a memory, he's not real – _

On the contrary, he is all too real.

He catches her mouth again in bitter, savage kiss, parting her lips, his tongue swift and invasive. And through the punishing intensity of the assault, something stirs inside her, the realisation that her cool, controlled and aloof Tom has lost all his composure because of _her… _

And suddenly, she's kissing him back, drinking in the poison from his cruel mouth, her body coming alive from the pain of it. This is desire, this is madness… He's slowly killing her, even while he's the only thing keeping her alive, the one solid thing in her hollow world of memories and lies and dream-fragments, far more real than the shallow mockery of a life she leads in her waking hours. And she clings to him, tasting his bitterness, because there is nothing else left…

The moment he pulls away, she realises what she's done. His eyes are heavy-lidded, lazy and dark with amusement.

"So you hate me, do you Ginevra?" He smirks. "You have a funny way of showing it."

Her skin is crawling with sensation. And - _oh! _- his mouth is burning a trail along her bare shoulder, through her flimsy nightdress, and she finds herself arching into his possessing hold. His smile curves against her flushed skin. He twists his hands in her hair, making her draw a sharp breath in pain. But she's just as fierce, tugging at his shirt, clawing at his shoulders, hating him, hating him, _hating _him - and _wanting _him -

He's like a fever, causing her to shiver and burn, making her weak and dizzy. She can't stand, but it doesn't matter as she's not standing anyway… she's lying down, her hair spread out around her, green darkness yawning above her and someone's - _his _- cloak beneath her, and Tom, Tom…

He falls to his knees in front of her, his dark head bowed as though in prayer. But no one will answer her prayers here, and Tom is certainly no angel…

Unless a fallen one.

Then he lifts his head, and the breath catches in her throat. He's staring at her, a hauntingly beautiful figure in his outdated shirt and dark trousers, one hand against his breast in a pious gesture. His black curls are slightly disarrayed and there's an uncommon flush on his pale cheeks, making him look younger, innocent almost.

"Did you really think it would be otherwise, Ginevra?" he breathes in a haunting litany. "Did you really think that you would not be mine - entirely mine? You knew this would happen. You must have known. Why else would you keep coming back?"

_No. _Frantic now, Ginny tries to pull herself upright, but he's too fast, catching her by the shoulders in that biting, half-unpleasant hold. He drags his fingers through her damp hair, letting it fall over her fine-boned shoulders, red on white, like ribbons of blood. Then… his fingers trail lightly along her upper arms, and the tenderness of the gesture briefly stuns her into immobility, and she doesn't realise what he intends to do…

…until his hands fist into the sheer material of her nightdress, savagely ripping it over her head, and she's facing him with nothing on. Agonised humiliation flushes through every part of her body. It's no consolation that her nightgown is so saturated that he must have seen everything anyway. She wants to curl in on herself, to die of embarrassment. She wants to go back four years, to the beginning of her life, before she had ever heard of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

It is unthinkable that there was a time in her life when she did not know him. He's always been there, just beneath the surface of her. A scar on her soul.

There is an expression of wild, cold joy on his face as his eyes drink her in. She can feel goose pimples rising along every inch of her body and she knows it isn't from cold.

She's terrified. She's furious. She's burning with desire.

He shrugs out of his shirt, but she can't look, she can't let herself believe any of this is real… He's twisting her, bending her to his will, and she's _letting_ him, just as she will always let him, because it's Tom, and maybe Tom is really the one she wanted after all…

_But I always thought – Harry – _

He bends his head over her, black hair spilling like ink across her freckled torso. She's never had anyone this close before and it's - he's -

…planting chill kisses down her body and she squirms against him – it's fever and ice and shuddering pleasure - and why is he so _cold? _

"_Tom…" _

Her voice, intended to be a warning, comes out a ragged whimper. Ginny tugs at his hair, hard, and he hisses through his teeth. She feels his soft exhalation on her navel, and her body tenses, wondering what on earth he will possibly do next, but she can't think of that, she must end this while she still can…

Taking advantage of his momentary pause, she attempts to twist away from him but he only laughs cruelly, fingers pressing into her thighs. "Oh no…" he murmurs. "No, Ginevra, I'm not nearly through with you yet…"

His voice has lost some of its steadiness but Ginny doesn't register the fact because at that precise moment his hands are - oh God, his _hands_. They're pressing, probing, _moving, _and suddenly she's marshlight and witchfire, burning in places she shouldn't be, places that are best left in the dark. It's invasive and wrong that he should be touching her _there, _but it's mindless pleasure and she can't _think _except to wish it might never stop… but she can't - she wants - she _needs -_

Someone is moaning, gasping, and she's starting to come apart at the seams, spiralling out of control… closer… closer…

She almost sobs in frustration as he suddenly pulls away. The stone is hard beneath her back, even through his cloak. Somewhere very far away, she's aware of him freeing himself of his trousers, but there's only the cloying chill across her damp skin, and - and -

He's poised over her, breathing hard, black eyes narrowed to slits. She's never seen him like this before, so wild, so out of control.

"Tom, please -"

He only shakes his head, his mouth a thin, taut line. It's too late now; she won't fight him, she _can't _fight him, she could never fight him…

_This can't be happening, how can I - we - _

"I told you," he says in a harsh voice, all semblance of composure gone, "That everything of yours belongs to me. And yet you still defied me." He twines around her body like a devouring serpent. She feels a sick faintness at his weight on her, but, in a perverse way, it _fits_. There's the enveloping scent of snuffed candles, but beneath the skin he is burning, too hot, too fevered. His head lowers as he whispers into her ear, "Didn't you know that I'm never wrong?"

She can feel the angular planes of his chest, his sharp bones and lean muscles, the trembling strength as he grips her wrists in a ruthless hold. He swallows her cry of pain with his mouth, narrow hips pressing hard against her own, causing a jolt of electric sensation to flare through her lower body. He's paralysing her, consuming her…

Then she tears her mouth away with a cry as she feels herself jaggedly _filled _by him in one hard thrust. Tears blur her vision. His fingers are bruising her hips and it hurts, _he _hurts -

Furious, she claws at his shoulders and chest, wanting to draw blood, wanting to kill him… only then he begins to move, and -

And she gasps and clutches him as sensation uncoils through her entire _being_. He makes a noise - something between a laugh and snarl - and bites her lower lip savagely, and she can taste her blood on his lips, or is it ink? Pain blurs with pleasure, and he's moving above and within her, his mouth hard and demanding on hers, swallowing her voice, her breath, her very life…

Then he draws back slightly, looking down into her face, and his eyes are dark, darker than anything. "Say my name…" he orders in a ragged breath.

She gasps, "Tom -"

"No." He slams into her again, so deep that she almost screams with the splintering pleasure of it. "The other one…"

He moves again and the agony is _ecstatic. _They are so close Ginny can no longer tell where he ends or she begins; only he's inside her as he's always been inside her and always will be, world without end -

"_Voldemort_," she whispers.

He does laugh then, and the heat of him sears though her like a knife, and he's the one warm thing in her cold, dark world and she can never let him go... And the green mist surrounds her, surrounds them both, and it's as green as the eyes she doubts she'll ever see again.


	4. The Fourth Night

**The Fourth Night**

The stone floor of the chamber is ice-cold beneath her bare skin. Every inch of her is in pain. She has no idea how long she's been lying there. She opens her eyes, half expecting to see Tom's long, pale body next to her, but he's dressed already, and standing above her. Pale green light darkens his silhouette, making him seem taller and leaner than ever. And while the damp walls of the chamber appear soft around the edges, blurred almost, he is clearer than ever. Her mind trips over itself as she struggles to think through a green mist.

_Oh, God. What have I done? I can't have – but I _have _– oh, Dean – oh, _Harry!

Ginny groans and rolls over to one side. _I'm going to be sick._

The stone slabs swim beneath her. She heaves and retches, but nothing comes out. Her stomach is hollow and churning, round and round, round and round –

Finally, after seemingly endless minutes of shallow breathing, she drags herself back up to a sitting position and blinks the moisture from her eyes. Tom is looking down at her in faint disgust. She hastily attempts to cover herself with her hands.

"If you're going to be sick," he says coolly, "Can you do it somewhere other than the chamber of Salazar Slytherin?"

Slowly, she pulls his robe towards her, draping it around her body, and sits still, shivering. Her nightgown is a sodden mess, discarded in a pool of water and streaked with blood, beyond repair.

"It's passed." Her voice sounds odd – hoarse – in her own ears.

He makes a scornful sound and turns away. Ginny glances down and swallows painfully. Her body is covered in bruises. Her thighs are wet with blood, or…

"Tom –"

His shoulders twitch at the use of his name, but he doesn't turn around. Ginny begins to stand up and winces at the effort – _God, everything hurts – _

Then it hits her.

She has had sex.

With - with_ Tom._

_Oh my God - _

Her small shoulders crumple in silent misery. Tears prick the backs of her eyes. She has always imagined her first time would be something special, something beautiful, and it had alwaysbeen Harry. _Always. _Nothing like this. Nothing like being taken like an animal on the floor of a stone-cold chamber by a murderous psychopath she hates more than anyone else in the world –

She has to choke back a sob. It's just another thing he has taken from her; the sweet purity and innocence of a first love twisted into something foul and perverse, and Harry, Harry… oh God, how can she ever look at Harry again?

_Harry, I'm so sorry, I never wanted – _

But she _had _wanted it. Even telling herself that Tom would have forced himself on her anyway doesn't help. She still remembers saying _yes _and _please _for all her paltry attempts at resistance. But she can't think about that.

Painfully, she pulls herself to her feet, stifling a gasp at the cold stone beneath her heels. She takes a couple of shaking steps forward, expecting at each moment to pitch forward into the dark water that laps at her ankles. This is worse, far worse than her nightmares of serpents and blood and black-bound books. She would give anything to wake up, even if it meant being surrounded by chicken feathers and with no memory. Her body is half-dead with cold, which is almost a relief. The numbness means she can't feel the bruises or the throbbing ache between her legs. There is only one thought prevalent in her fogged mind; to find some way of escape.

Perhaps Tom won't care now. He's got what he wanted, she hasn't anything left to give. He's taken it all.

_And I let him._

Sore and heartsick, she makes her way through the shallow water, past the statue of Salazar Slytherin, past the hideously carved snakes leering down at her. She's tasted poison already, felt the bitter venom searing through her veins, rendering her body pliant and willing as Tom parted her thighs with his hands, his fingers and mouth in places that made her incoherent with pleasure -

"Where do you think you're going?" His soft voice cuts through the still air, slicing through her like the edge of a knife.

Ginny stops dead. Instinctively, she pulls his cloak tighter around her, refusing to look at him. "Won't you let me go now?" she asks bitterly.

"Oh, I think it's far too late for that," he says, with a strange smile.

Her blood slows, turning as cold as the chill water swirling at her feet. "What do you mean?" she says in rasping voice.

His fingers are toying languidly with his high collar. "When could _you _ever renounce me?" Then he laughs quietly, as though the mere thought of it is ridiculous.

She steps out of the water onto higher ground so she can face him on a more even level, and tries to suppress the shivering of her body. "I can," she says fiercely. "I _will._"

Tom shakes his head slowly, his eyes dark and searching. He looks at her almost wonderingly. "How can you renounce me when you cannot even free yourself? You say you wish me gone, Ginevra, yet still you return here night after night. It always comes back to this."

"It's you. You're doing this. You've used Dark magic, or -"

"Don't betray your ignorance about magic you cannot hope to grasp," he snaps, impatient once more. Ginny thinks she prefers him when he's angered; she can deal with his anger, understand it. But when he looks at her so strangely, his eyes seeming to see through her… it sends chills down her spine.

He continues to look at her unsmilingly. "Perhaps I _should_ let you go. See how far you would get before you came running back."

"I wouldn't," she says. "I don't need you. I have -"

"What? Family? _Friends?_" Then he pauses, a knowing smile unfurling at the corners of his mouth. "But no, it's not them you're talking about, is it? You continue to pine after a boy you can never have, a boy who would rather go with a Mudblood before he would ever make eyes at you..."

Ginny's nails are biting into her slick palms. _No. It's Ron she likes, not Harry… and Harry doesn't want her, anyway. _

But another voice, low and insidious, whispers, _But she could have him if she wanted, and you could do nothing to stop it._

Tom's eyes burn through her, like a dark flame. "Strange, isn't it, how we both yearn for what seems to be impossible? You, through a stubborn and infuriatingly persistent sense of _hope_, and I from the knowledge that nothing is unobtainable to those who have the power to seek it."

Ginny shakes her long hair out of her face, ignoring the way his eyes greedily follow the movement. "You think you have power?" She throws all the scorn she can into her voice. "Look at you. You can't do anything. A memory stuck in a diary, a dream - nothing about you is real. The moment I wake up, you'll disappear."

His mouth curves. "Is that what you think, lover?"

"_Lover?" _She laughs shrilly. "Hardly! I'd rather be _dead _than have your cold hands anywhere near me again -"

Tom's expression turns rigid. Before she can so much as draw breath, he shakes her hard, his face a mask of carven fury. "You dare talk like this - to _me?"_ Ink-dark hair falls across his forehead, wild, disordered. She feels her body flung to and fro, like a limp rag-doll. "Do you _know _what I'm capable of?"

Robbed of breath, she gives no answer. His hands slide downwards in a shuddering caress until they reach her waist, slender white fingers pressing painfully into the bones of her hips._ "_I could snap you in two, even without magic," he says softly against her ear. She shivers. "And I would in an instant, only…"

His soft cadences echo in the dim chamber, curling around her mind like inky shadows. His too-large robe is slipping from her shoulders, but suddenly, she's no longer cold. Tom raises a hand, his knuckles tracing a slow line along her collarbone in a trail of light, scorching ice. Ginny closes her eyes, unwillingly reminded of the cruel pleasure in his caresses, the fierce, intoxicating sensation of his mouth against her own; bitter, consuming, vital. The blood turns to syrup in her veins, pulsing slow and sweet and languid. Panic stirs at the back of her mind. What form of magic is this, that can paralyse her so effectively?

Tom's mouth is inches from her own; she can almost taste the drugging completeness of it. A part of her whispers how sweet it would be to succumb, to sink once more into that cloying darkness and never resurface. His fingers pause at the hollow of her throat, feeling the traitorously rapid beat of her pulse. She can feel his body coiled against hers, sinuous and tense, like a snake about to strike. "It would be a bitter irony indeed," he murmurs to himself, "If I were to become caught in my own trap."

She breathes a sigh of relief as he steps away from her, though it is short-lived. His face is pale with anger, though for some reason she doesn't think it's _her_ he's angry with. He fingers her wand. "Perhaps it is best to eradicate you entirely. Have done with you that way."

At last she finds her voice.

"Tom - no -"

"No?" He lifts a dark brow. "Even after everything… you still have a sense of self-preservation. Understandable. Then perhaps there is another way… something else I could do with you. I wonder…"

"I thought you said I was useless," she says, a little bitterly.

"Did I? Yes, I suppose I did. But even as a tiresome eleven year old, you were turned into quite an effective destroyer of Mudbloods. I'm sure you could be most _useful_."

"To you?" she hisses. "Never."

He grabs her face roughly, long fingers tilting her chin up to the misty, iridescent light. There's that hungry look in his eyes again. "If I say you can be useful to me, then you _shall. _It seems I was mistaken in thinking you were entirely a waste of my time. Do you think I haven't seen you use others for your own ends? Those insignificant boys you dally with to make Potter notice you?"

Ginny feels sick. He's right of course, just as he's right about everything. Suddenly, she longs to watch him bleed, to run him through with a sword, but of course she's not _Gryffindor _enough to do that. She won't be saved by fire and rubies and phoenix wings. She's not Harry.

Her voice sounds weak, even to her own ears. "I'm not _using_ -"

"Lie to yourself Ginevra, but do not lie to me. _Ever." _Then he laughs aloud. The sound of it catches in the jagged edges of her heart. "I never thought you had it in you. But I can't deny it pleases me that you do. To have such power over others… oh, I could show you things. Things that could make others utterly subservient to your will even without the Imperius Curse, render them your willing slaves." His eyes darken. "Even Potter, if you wished it." His other hand pulls at a strand of her hair, none-too-gently. Her breath catches with the pleasure-pain of it. "And with looks such as these… there are few who would resist you."

Her mouth is suddenly very dry. "Are you -" The words catch in her throat. "Are you saying you think I'm beautiful?"

His hand on her tightens. "Would I desire you otherwise?"

She stares at him. Her mind is reeling. She cannot grasp it, it is unthinkable, _unimaginable… _

_Tom Riddle. _

He desires her… he desires _her_…

He thinks she's beautiful. Ginny winces. She doesn't _feel _beautiful. Her hair is a tangled mess, she's shivering and bruised and _aching. _And that _scent_… It's one she's never encountered before but she knows what it is. Sex. Musky. Raw.

Dark.

Like Tom. Like her, now.

"I don't understand." Her voice is uncertain. "I thought you hated me."

"Oh, I do," he assures her. Slender hands caress her neckline before gradually tightening their grip, thumbs digging painfully into the hollow of her throat. "I think I hate you more than I have ever hated anyone… You are too close, Ginevra, too much a part of myself. And I cannot allow that." The hands tighten and it hurts, hurts, _hurts! _Blinding agony erupts in a ring of fire around her throat and her hands are clawing at his, trying to loosen his bruising grip -

"_Tom…!_"

Her entreaty is a ragged gasp. Wild panic pounds inside her chest, choking her, as she struggles for air. She can't breathe, oh God she can't breathe -

Inside her mind she's screaming but black spots swim in front of her eyes, black and green, and it's all she can see… all… she hears his voice from very far away…

"I cannot allow for weakness. It would be madness to allow you to live. Even you must see that. Yet even now a part of me wishes to embrace that madness..."

She's going to die -

"And yet…"

Suddenly, his hands are gone from her throat, but before she can so much as draw breath, he kisses her hard. A bitter tang, like ink and blood, floods her mouth. Through the dizzying pleasure of it, darkness blurs her vision. Her chest strains as she fights uselessly for breath. Tears are stinging her eyes and she can't breathe, she can't _think_, he's killing her_ – _

When he releases her, she staggers, clutching a fistful of his shirt to remain upright. Nothing but cold, damp air - she's gasping, swallowing it down - how could she have ever thought it oppressive…

"Must you cringe over me, Ginevra?" Tom says irritably. "I would far prefer your violence."

Something inside her snaps. If he wants violence, he will get it. Her hand flies upwards, nails grazing down his marble-cold cheek, wanting to do _something, _wanting to mar that torturously perfect face, the image of which is burned into her soul…

He doesn't flinch, not even when four crimson gashes appear with vivid clarity against his white skin. Ginny stares up at him, breathing hard, shaken by his frightening lack of response. _You don't even feel pain. Do you feel anything, Tom?_

When he speaks, his voice is entirely different. It's the voice she remembers from years ago, the voice she always associates with him. Soft, lilting, persuasive, but with a subtle hard undercurrent, the imperious cadences of one used to being obeyed. "Think about what it is you're fighting. Everything you want could be yours for the taking… at a price, of course." He smirks, leaving her in little doubt of what such a price would entail. "We could be unstoppable, you and I."

"I'll die first," she says savagely through her bruised throat. It hurts to speak.

He shrugs. "If that's what you want."

Ginny's heart slams against her ribs. It's the matter-of-fact way he says it, far more than his veiled anger, that turns her blood to ice. His fingers curl around her wand. _He's going to do it. He's actually going to do it._

How could she have ever doubted he would be the one to destroy her?

"Aren't you going to scream?" A distant, dreamy look appears in his eyes. "I think I would like that."

_Oh God._

Tom inhales deeply. His eyes are closed. His upturned face has the shining, fanatical look of a martyr about to walk up to the pyre. It's the most terrifying thing she's ever seen.

It's the _last _thing she'll ever see.

"I should have rid myself of you from the first," he breathes. "I don't know why I waited… perhaps it was to prove to myself that you really are the insignificant little blood-traitor I first believed you to be. I never thought…"

Ginny tries to take a step back, but bumps up against hard stone. Her heart thumps sickeningly. Once. Twice. Tom stands motionless, wand in hand.

_Why doesn't he do it?_

Cloying mist swirls around her, laying cold fingers against her puckered skin, and she's shivering and sick with terror - run_- run_ -

The wall at her back, she tries to inch sideways, but every part of her body screams out in agonised protest - she's exhausted, she _hurts - _she's too slow -

There's nowhere left to run, she can only wait, wait as Tom, Tom is -

_Is he…? No. He won't. He _can't.

And, at long last, Ginny stops trying to run. Instead, she raises her head, red hair falling over her shoulders. Her mouth curls into a slow smile.

"Tom," she says slowly. "Do you love me?"

His beautiful eyes open. For a long, long time, he stares at her. Then -

"Yes," he says softly, and moves in close to kiss her. Her body bends pliantly to meet his. Something painful digs into her ribs.

"_Avada Kedavra," _he breathes.


	5. Epilogue: Morning

**Epilogue**

_Each day you grow older  
__Each moment I'm watching my vengeance unfold  
__The child of my body, the flesh of my soul  
__Will die in returning the birthright he stole_

_Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty  
Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty only to me…_

**Morning**

Morning, traditionally, should come to chase the night terrors away.

It doesn't.

Daylight brings no comfort when the nightmares are real. And, when all is said and done, it seems oddly fitting that Ginny Weasley's fifth year at Hogwarts would end with a funeral.

It is a beautiful ceremony, too. A pale, milkwater sun spills across the dew-drenched grounds. A dawn chorus of phoenix song, filled with anguished lamentation. It seems the entire Wizarding World has come to mourn the loss. A sea of unfamiliar faces, all pale with grief. The blankness of shock permeates the service.

And in the centre of it all, the single white tombstone marred only by the sharp-cut black letters engraved upon its smooth surface.

_Harry James Potter, 1980-1996._

Ginny Weasley stands at the forefront, dressed in black, her face blazing. She is stoic and upright and tearless, beautiful in her undaunted defiance. Her vivid hair burns scarlet in the early morning, blood-hued in the long rays of the rising sun.

It is her that everyone watches, her that everyone whispers about behind their hands. Not Ron and Hermione, who cling to each other like the sole survivors in a drowning world. Not Dumbledore, who gives a subdued, heartbreaking speech about heroism and the darkest hour being just before the dawn, the sparkling light in his blue eyes gone out forever.

Look at her, the mourners say. So brave. Not even crying. Harry would be proud.

She ignores the whispers. She merely stands there, a strange look in those slanting dark eyes as the coffin is slowly lowered into the ground. _Requiescat in pace._ That phrase always irked her. What does it matter how he rests? Dead is dead. She knows that is nearly always true.

"I s'pose it's over then," says Ron numbly. "Without Harry… that's it, isn't it?"

"Oh no," Ginny murmurs. "No. This is only the beginning."

"Ginny's right," says Hermione firmly. She clenches her violently trembling fists. "We can't give up now. Harry would want us to fight. We owe it to him."

Ginny merely looks at her. That wasn't what she meant, but she keeps her silence.

"Gin… promise me you won't do anything stupid. If _Harry_ couldn't take on Voldemort, you wouldn't have a chance." Ron looks entreatingly at her through red-rimmed eyes. It clashes with his hair and freckles, he looks _all _red. She stares at him in distaste. "I can't lose you, too."

"He's right, Ginny," Hermione says. "Leave it to the Order."

_The Order?_

"Ah," she says. "Dumbledore. Of course."

"I mean it, Gin," Ron says. "You can't beat You-Know-Who. Not on your own."

She smiles distantly, her voice very soft.

_"Nothing is unobtainable to those who have the power to seek it."_

* * *

She stops playing Quidditch. People understand. It's too painful, they say. Too many memories. Take as long as you need.

Instead, she spends her time indoors, burying herself in the darkest corners of the library. She opens books with blank pages and fills her quills with scarlet ink. She draws serpents on scraps of parchment and burns the jumpers her mother keeps sending by owl.

She reads the Prophet. Familiar names jump out at her. Malfoy. Lestrange. Dolohov. Wanted, wanted, wanted. Old names, old loyalties. New war.

She performs well in her classes - outstandingly well. Examinations come and go and she breezes through them. She stays behind after class to ask Slughorn questions and he looks at her strangely, as though there is something he should remember.

At night she sleeps, and no longer dreams.

* * *

A week later, Dumbledore calls her into his office.

The change in his appearance is startling. He's aged a hundred years in the space of days. Even the portraits look haggard. All except for Phineus Nigellus who looks at her in startled recognition, then smirks behind Dumbledore's head.

And Fawkes, who previously, had always allowed her to stroke him, now hisses viciously at her through his predatory sharp beak and glares at her with those obsidian black eyes. Dumbledore notices but pretends not to. Ginny's hand curls around the wand in her back pocket, concealed by the heavy fall of her robes. She has her own score to settle with that bird.

"Take a seat, Miss Weasley." Dumbledore sounds exhausted.

She sits. There is no sound but the clink and whir of golden instruments. From his perch, Fawkes continues to watch her unblinkingly.

"How are you?" Dumbledore asks quietly.

She clenches her white hands in her lap. "Fine, Professor."

"Professor McGonagall tells me you are doing well in your classes."

She says nothing.

"I have already spoken to your brother and Miss Granger. In light of… recent events, you do understand that anything that can give us an indication of the cause of Harry's -" Pain twists his lined face - "Harry's death, will be invaluable to the Order."

"I don't know anything, Professor," she says at once. "No one does."

Dumbledore looks at her for a long, long time. She gazes innocently back, her face smoothly bland.

"I am very sorry, Ginevra," he says at last.

"Thank you, Professor." She wonders whether she should be crying.

He sighs.

"You may go."

* * *

The sun rises, sets, and rises again. And the Gryffindor Common Room is the colour of spilled blood. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last.

The atmosphere is sombre, subdued. People sit in huddled groups, no one wanting to speak too loudly. There has been no laughter for days. The fire smoulders sullenly into ash, leaving an uncommon chill in the air. Someone chokes back a sob.

Ginny doesn't tell them they're mourning the wrong death, that the _real _apocalypse began with a small girl in a hidden chamber far beneath the surface of the earth and whom no one thought to miss or question. Harry does not matter, not really. After all, it is Eve, not Adam, who brought an end to Paradise. But they will all find out soon enough.

At first light, she steals away to the bathroom, the same bathroom where the fate of the world was changed, only no one knows it yet. For a long, long time, she listens to the drip and echo of water, the groaning of pipes, and something, _something, _stirring far below that has longed for awakening _fifty years, a lifetime ago and more_. She knows that hunger.

Green _Avada Kedavras _burn across her waking lids and her hand feels incomplete without a ring. Memories pervade her, thrown together from too many minds, too many souls. Confused images of a blushing child and screaming nameless victims.

There's always a girl, though. Or perhaps two girls. It is difficult to tell.

Pretty face, pretty hair. Red, she recalls. It is an intriguing coincidence. A death for a life. Love has its uses, after all. She should have known that from the last _(first?) _time. It is another one of those memories-not-memories that emerge in her mind, subtle and elusive as parting tendrils of mist.

_Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!_

_Stand aside you silly girl… stand aside now…_

_Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead -_

Fifteen years, fifty years later it had taken to do the thing in the end.

It was surprisingly easy, after everything. _Avada Kedavra. _One flash. Basilisk light, electric poison. And Harry's body collapsed instantly, a crumpled pile on the slick bathroom tiles. He died as easily as the rest. There was nothing remarkable about him, after all. She had turned his prone figure over with her small foot, silently gazing down at him.

Dishevelled black hair. A pair of shattered glasses. Emerald green eyes frozen in shock and horrified realisation.

Ah yes, that had been sweet. That moment of revelation. _For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face…_

An upraised wand accompanied by a curving smile. _Don't you know me, Harry Potter? Twice now you have killed me. You know your luck had to run out in the end._

And Harry really had loved her. That made it all the more ironic. She has tasted love now, something she never thought possible, once. And no one must know about it, ever. She's gorged herself on love until she's sick with it, until the only inevitable way to end it was to become one, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. It always came down to power and submission in the end.

And now her blood runs pure. Just the way it was always meant to be. She stares at herself in the mirror, and it is a pale face and dark eyes that gaze back, mouth thin as a knife's gash.

_It appears you were useful to me after, Ginevra Weasley._

She leans forward and kisses the cold lips of her reflection.

Fifty years is a long time.

* * *

**Author's Note: I was in the middle of writing 'Tempus' when I realised I couldn't rest until this story had some form of closure. I wrote this epilogue in an attempt to tie up what was left hanging in the last chapter, but actually ended up leaving even more of a cliff-hanger than the one I intended to resolve. However, this one, at least to me, feels 'finished.' Credit once again to Heather Dale for the lyrics.**


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